𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄 ‣ 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐫

iiii. omnipotence

act three, chapter four – omnipotence

Fallon knew more time had passed when Peeta said to her, "Katniss is a mutt." Peeta slowly was divulging to insanity, shifting the Fallon's focus from his light to the absence of it. Some intangible part of her knew he tried his best, or maybe that was just a retired thought process she clung onto to avoid confronting the truth. At first, it started out with him wondering things neither of them could confirm or deny. His favorite flavor of tea. His favorite painting. Questions that Fallon tried to view neutrally because she knew it was only going to get worse. 

Then they started to get more narrow, sharpened harshly like the edges of his words. The only thing Fallon could do now was hope that her numbness would make the sting of Peeta's comments blend in with the rest of the drab, emptiness around her. But they never did. They stuck out like discolored, jagged fragments on a smooth white canvas that unrelentingly persisted, no matter how hard she tried. The effort of it all — Peeta and Fallon — started to fade, and they both nearly surrendered to it. She relished in the simplicity of submitting to fear because it was an absolute, and it was easier to be certain than to have a wavering shred of hope. Waving a white flag instead of a red one drew less attention to the gravity the situation.

The air is still. If Fallon had to guess, or hope, she would say it was winter. Something about the atmosphere that makes the air move slowly and softer. An invisible sense of stillness that softens the abruptness of motion. An intelligible urge to be close to someone, to feel warmth.

"Peeta, what do you think of when you think Katniss?" Fallon's mouth asked.  A distinct disconnect from action and feeling. A moment of similar tranquility. She doesn't really know why her body asked him this, but it doesn't really matter either.

Fallon can't see him clearly from where she's sitting. His legs, reminiscent of vines due to their sinewy yet frail look, stick out against the bars. The rest of his leans against the wall, somewhat  strategically so he doesn't have to look at her. "I think about how she's the reason I'm here. Why we're all dying while she's safely tucked away. How she left me for dead in that cave in the first Games."

It seems that Peeta's also taken to the absolute. Or maybe it was really the end, the final stop of the linear path of time. After dwelling on it for a moment, a peculiar feeling strikes her. A real thought, stark against the nothingness in her skull. A true chemical reaction that forces her brain to return to its original function and not a piece to be prodded at. It's impossible to celebrate but she acknowledges it in a neutral, pleasant way. Like quickly thanking a stranger for holding a door open. "What else?"

"I– I think about how I burned bread for her. She was starving in the street and I threw it at her."

This is real, Fallon thinks. It's evident in how he hesitates and how his tenor changes in the slightest. A feeling drops in her skeleton, something she would relate back to the Games but she's not sure why his words feel so associative. It washes over her when Peeta sucks in a breath. She knows him well enough to picture how he's shaking his head in a frustrated, resolute way, and that he balling his fists up, and how he never tries to hide when tears are falling.